cHAP. vii] RELATIONS OF THE HOUSES 604 
supporting the Lower House against the Upper House, an 
accusation which the Governor energetically denied. 
The Governor, in a dispatch of the 26th of January! 
criticized adversely the claims of the Legislative Council, 
and their argument that the duty of the Ministry when 
the Bill was rejected was to acquiesce in the Council's 
decision or resign or advice a dissolution. There was no 
reason to suppose that a dissolution would result in any 
change in the composition of the Assembly. The House was 
only eight months old, and if the claims of the Council 
were allowed the majority of the Council would become 
practically absolute rulers in the community, for they would 
have the power, simply by throwing out the Appropriation 
Bill, to make and unmake Ministries, and to subject the 
representatives of the people in the Assembly to an intoler- 
able series of dissolutions. He also protested against the 
Legislative Council imputing to him personal responsibility 
for acts done on the advice of his Executive Council. In 
a dispatch, also of January 26,2 he called attention to 
the fact that the Government had a right to dispense at 
pleasure with the services of any officers, as shown by the 
decision of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1859 in the 
case of Furnival v. The Queen. 
On the 4th of February, 1878, the Governor sent a 
dispatch in which he stated that a case had been brought 
unsuccessfully before the Supreme Court to test the legality 
of the action of the Ministry respecting the County Court 
Judges, it having been alleged that a certain case tried 
before a judge had been improperly tried, as the judge had 
been dismissed from office and not properly reinstated. In 
subsequent dispatches he pointed out that Mr. Berry com- 
manded nearly sixty votes in a House of eighty-six members, 
and there was every reason to believe that he retained an 
equal majority in the constituencies. 
Both Houses of Parliament presented addresses to the 
Crown maintaining their own rights and defending their 
' Parl. Pap., C. 1985, p. 42. * Ibid., p. 45. 
' Parl, Pap., C. 2173, p. 1. Cf. Turner, History of Victoria. ii, 200 seq, 
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